Somebody should send help

Now Playing

Atari 2600 – Guardian

You know you’re in deep sh*t when the developers name is larger than the actual title.

A shooter by Apollo, set in space and somehow nobody has ever heard of it.
Weird, because the game is alright and has a great feature.

A large spaceship is attacking earth(s).
Yes, there are three earths in this game.
They are positioned at the bottom of the screen and float in a loop from right to left.
They are guarded by a large shield which in return is guarded by you.
The spaceship will drop different kinds of bombs in an attempt to destroy the shield and earth.
You can’t shoot the ship with your laser (beam not large enough…) but you can destroy the bombs.
They all have different patterns and get faster later on.
The game ends when all earths are gone.

There are various gameplay modes but I couldn’t see big differences between them.
The manual states contrasting enemy behavior but I would have enjoyed other firing patterns more.The shooting sucks.
Ýou can’t move while you fire the laser. You can press in any direction tho and when you release the fire button you teleport to a different location on the screen.
It’s really confusing.
Here’s what worked best: press fire rapidly and move left to right.I highly doubt a more sophisticated tactic works better.

Guardian looks good.
I like how all the bombs come in unique shapes and even the earth(s) feature continents and poles. Nice.
Shame they didn’t put any stars in the black background.
The sound effects are rather annoying.
Your laser emits a high-pitched noise that might give you a headache.
The mute button is your friend.

So what is the great feature I was talking about in the introduction?A full-fledged co-op mode.They actually did it and it’s fabulous.
You on the bottom and your buddy on top while the spaceship drops bombs in all directions.
An absolute clusterf*ck and fun as hell.
So while the game has obvious flaws and wouldn’t be fun for a longer duration; the lively multiplayer mode makes this a worthy addition to your collection.Play it!